The Sopranos Finale: A Big Finger to Viewers?

It's not something that's wise for a TV critic to admit.

But, these days, I don't get The Sopranos.

Take the show's disjointed, anticlimatic finale Sunday. To me, it felt like an hourlong f-you from a guy who has seen fan devotion for The Sopranos transform him from a little-known but well respected TV producer into one of the most legendary TV auteurs in history.

As I expected, we didn't see Tony get whacked -- although Chase did all he could with the show's final scene to leave us wondering whether some goombah was going to come out of the bathroom blasting the whole family to pieces. And why exactly were they eating dinner in such a low rent joint? Didn't seem like a place Carmela would be caught dead in, normally.

Chase's finale also seemed to leave a lot of the show's trademark humor by the wayside as well. Wry as it was to see Tony trying to turn son A.J. 's leggy, taciturn therapist into another Dr. Melfi, it didn't quite match the heights of previous seasons. Even the bitter angst of Tony and Carmela's marriage seems to have settled into an easy tedium -- punctuated only by their frenzied attempts to deal with floundering son A.J.

What I did like: the FBI guy rooting for Tony and hooking him up with Leotardo's location (he's been charmed by the sociopath just like all the rest of us); Paulie Walnut's cellphone ringtone is Paul Simon's "Cecilia" (that guy's quirks never cease to amaze); Tony forced to tool around town in brewery truck until the war with New York calms down.

Among the avalanche of response from folks to my negative review of the finale in today's paper came the notion that the FBI guy had become a smaller, law enforcement version of Tony  -- taking crap from his wife, cheating on her with someone who also has issues with him, and passing on info from her which gets someone else killed.

Still, as I pointed out in a review for today's newspaper, Sunday's episode seemed morel ike a passive-aggressive shot by Chase at all the fans dumb enough to soak uyp every detail of the last nine episodes.

But maybe I'm just being too sensitive. Let me know what you thought about Sunday's finale; if you're persuasive enough, maybe I'll put a hold on my order of "David Chase Sux" t-shirts...but you'd better be awfully convincing.

UPDATE: Other professional reviewers share my pain. See Nikki Finke, who urges HBO subscribers to cancel their subscriptions in protest;Variety was more evenhanded, calling it a  "finale without finality";  my pal robert Bianco at USA Today was also a little coy about whether this was a slap to fans or a cheeky twist.

 

Comments

[EP]

The "big F-U from the writer" argument sounds familiar: its often launched at David Lynch from people who can't deal with ambiguous narratives. Those who get anything more out of the episode are seen as overanalyzing suckers, but I'll go ahead and take the bait.

Clearly, we are meant to think that the shady dude who walked in w/ AJ will abruptly spoil the familial idyll at the diner table. But there's some dramatic irony that people might miss in their blind race for closure: the characters think they're fine, but because of what the narration shows us, and because we're well versed in tension building exercises that have littered Hollywood since the days of D.W. Griffith, we're convinced that they're not fine at all. That's the tension at the end: between the lives the characters know and what we know of their world. True ambiguity would've given us and the characters competing cues as to what was about to happen. As a result, the final emotion is one of dread and unrealized fear, not ambiguity. The final violent act is unseen, and perhaps is all the more powerful because of that. Maybe this will be more evident on subsequent viewings.

Just like Twin Peaks, there were fans of The Sopranos who just wanted to find out what happens next. Those fans needn't worry that either show is gone b/c there's no shortage of shows and movies that provide the kind of closure they seek. Those who are looking for something different have to wait a decade or so for shows like these to come along.

[APT]

Once I figured out that my cable *didn't* cut out, I wondered if the abrupt ending was done to spare certain fans the trauma of actually *seeing* something bad happen to Tony.

[jackson]

I don't think David Chase's ending to the Sopranos left things undone or unsetteled, but was really an immediate and final wrap up to the series. I believe we actually did see the ending to the Sopranos as Tony experienced it.

The extended period of blackness on the screen indicated something did indeed happen and Tony suffered a fatal wound to the head he did not see coming. It could have been administered by any of the likely characters in the restaurant and it immediately took Tony to an empty nothingness which some believe death might present for its victim.

Phil Leotardo's demise earlier in the episode set this up as he too never knew what hit him. These two killings differ from many of the other Soprano "hits" over the years which appeared to happen in a manner in which the victim had at least a momentary recognition of what was about to happen.

We weren't expected to see Tony's family's reaction to his death as he too would not have been privy to observing it. The series revolved around Tony's character and his abrupt termination had a similar effect on the storyline.

[Steve Persall]

Actually, my TiVo caught the end of the show that everyone else apparently missed. Read the spoiler on my blog:

blogs.tampabay.com/movies

[Sandy]

To me the series ended as it should have begun. AJ was "cleansed", his despression lifted and on his way to becoming the next Soprano hot-shot. Tony's convinced that his luck has changed for the better with the demise of Christopher. The proof (according to the superstitious Tony)the "lucky cat". It seems that all of the serious threats to him and his family have been eliminated. He's made his peace with Uncle Junior. Carmella goes on with rose colored glasses dreaming of her a new beach house project. Meadow is going to be making the big bucks, maybe as the new consigliare, someday. Janice, well, she'll get her cash consolation to help sooth her grief. Everything is fresh and new. But as we all know, if you do not change your behavior and continue to act and react in the same ways, the results are always the same. Viva la Sopranos! I loved it!

[Joe Murphy]

I was one of the many viewers who said "what the %$*#" and jumped up to see what happened to my cable; my DVR; my DVD recorder, only to find out they were fine. I gave it all some thought and was simply dumfounded. later i concluded, as others have said, that the ending was perfect. I pray that there are no movies in the wings or other episodes, unless thay are sans Tony. He's dead. This series has always been written from Tony's vantage. You never hear the one that gets ya. Everything just goes black. Delayed kudos.

[Eric Deggans]

Steve -- trolling for hits on my blog? It's not even like I get that much traffic; you should put that message over on Stuck in the '80s. that's where the motherload of pageviews is...

Regarding Twin Peaks, I think critics generally agree that show had a wonderful start and degenerated into a disorganized mess. I understand the point you're making, but that's an awful show to use as a comparison. It is basically a textbook example of a TV series destroyed by its creator's increasing incoherence.

I guess the reason why the ending felt so false to me was that, throughout the series, Tony has shown an amazing knack for self-preservation and instinct for avoiding death.

For him to be in a joint like that and not notice the goombah in the Members Only jacket eyeing the family -- that felt false to me. And why would he get whacked now? Phil's gone -- all his enemies are basically dead. The Brooklyn family is busy getting reorganized under the new guy.

Call me a thickheaded shlub if you want, but I just wasn't buying it.

[Trish]

I like the theory that the audience was the one who was "hit." We didn't see it coming, and everything went black...

[Stac]

I enjoyed Journey "dont stop believing" to close out the episode. I found this list http://collegecandy.com/buzz/3398 of all the music from the final episode. worth checking out

[Jayman]

I don't think the fade to black necessarily represented Tony getting a bullet in the brain. It was just a tease. Look at the ending again: The people moving around the restaurant weren't always shot from Tony's perspective/point of view. Hell, half the time the Big Guy was focusing on his onion rings. That's why the scene was an artistic cop out: It was director Chase being manipulative and cute, down to the "assassin" going to the toilet like Michael Corleone in The Godfather. The whole season had an unreality about it as if it were all a big dream and Tony was still lying in the hospital with that gunshot wound in his gut. AJ went from being suicidal depressive, to whiney layabout, to prospective soldier to Hollywood operator within the course of what seemed like a couple weeks. I'm all for character evolution but it felt like lazy writing. Overall it was still an enjoyable season. Sure beats Survivor IX: The Aleutian Islands.

[joe hillman]

apparently the diner where tony's last scene was shot in is VERY popular in north jersey and is not seen as a low-brow place.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2007/writers/peter_king/06/11/mmqb/2.html